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Target 3

Target 3: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are engaged in high quality, culturally appropriate early childhood education in their early years

By 2025, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children enrolled in Year Before Fulltime Schooling (YBFS) early childhood education to 95 per cent.

Target measures

Measures



  • Number of First Nations children enrolled in year before fulltime schooling, by remoteness area.

  • Proportion (%) of First Nations children enrolled in year before fulltime schooling, by sex and over time.

  • Proportion (%) of First Nations children enrolled in year before fulltime schooling, over time.


Available by



  • Sex: males, females, persons.

  • Remoteness Area: remote, non-remote.


Data periods



  • 2022

  • Time trend data: 5-year period (2018 to 2022)


Data source


ABS Preschool Education, via the Australian Government Productivity Commission website (PC 2023; ABS 2023a, 2023b).


Region types


Main structures: Australia, states and territories.


Suppression


Measure based on publicly available data with no further suppression rules applied.


Notes



  • Enrolment proportions at the sub-national level (such as state and territory) may exceed 100 per cent for some areas due to the numerator and denominator being from different sources. The population (denominator) data are the best available estimates. However, the accuracy of population estimates tends to decrease the further away the year from the Census upon which they are based (currently the Dashboard uses population data based on the 2016 Census).

  • Data for Preschool Education, Australia are collected through the National Early Childhood Education and Care Collection (NECECC). Data are not fully comparable over time, or across jurisdictions, due to differences and changes in coverage and methodologies.

  • Data values have been randomly adjusted using perturbation to avoid the release of confidential data. Discrepancies may occur between sums of the component items and totals.

  • Methods for the identification of Indigenous status vary by jurisdiction. For data supplied via the Australian Government's child care subsidy system (CCSS), children of families who choose not to identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander are classified as ‘non-Indigenous’ rather than ‘unknown/not stated’. Nationally in 2022, YBFS preschool enrolments with a ‘not stated’ Indigenous status were 0.5 per cent of all YBFS preschool enrolments. (Tasmania had the largest proportion with 4.5 per cent, followed by SA with 4.3 per cent).

  • Remoteness Areas are defined by the Australian Statistical Geographical Standard (ASGS) and based on the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia which uses the road distance to goods and services (such as general practitioners, hospitals and specialist care) to measure relative accessibility of regions around Australia (ABS 2023f).

  • Remote areas include Very remote, remote and out regional areas, and non-remote areas include Major cities and inner regional areas.

Reference material

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2023a), Preschool Education, ABS website, accessed 13 November 2023.

ABS (2023b), Preschool Education methodology, ABS website, accessed 13 November 2023.

Productivity Commission (PC) (2023), Socioeconomic outcome area 3, Productivity Commission website, accessed 10 October 2023.